


The Adventure of the Dying Doctor

by Calais_Reno



Series: Fin de Siècle [18]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, Hallucinations, M/M, POV John Watson, Starvation, Suffering, True Love, Wrongful Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22845256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: Watson endures captivity after his arrest.This is part of a Victorian AU where Reichenbach happened, but Moran won and carried on what Moriarty had begun. Watson served two years in prison for gross indecency and Holmes, presumed dead for nearly eight years, returned to him. The two of them work to bring Moran down. In disguise, Holmes gathers intelligence on Moran's party. Watson writes for a small liberal newspaper and tends to the sick until he is arrested on false charges and sent to a workhouse.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Fin de Siècle [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551937
Comments: 14
Kudos: 47





	The Adventure of the Dying Doctor

I wake up in the dark, a sliver of moonlight passing through the window I cannot reach. It is night. For me, chained in a cold cell, it matters little what time it is. No one is feeding me.

It’s a cellar, I think, connected to a house. I sometimes hear footsteps overhead. I don’t know where I am; I was unconscious when I was brought here. Something makes me think that I’m north of London, but there really isn’t any way to know. Country house. I can smell the rain. The last thing I remember before this was the workhouse in Manchester. Bearing that was easier than living in this silent tomb. Even prison was never so dark.

No one knows exactly how long it takes a man to starve to death. I have seen starving men succumb quickly to infection, if they are severely undernourished. But if a man in good health were deprived of food but given water, how many days could he continue?

This is apparently the experiment I am living.

Hunger is first and foremost. There is not a moment when I don’t remember I’m hungry.

Thanks to my father’s diligence, I was never hungry as a child. Food was not extravagant at our table, but there was enough. I went into the army after I left school. There they kept us well-fed so that we’d be ready to fight. I was sturdy in those days and had a robust constitution that allowed me to eat and drink without putting on any excess fat. Holmes always commented on my hearty appetite, his own constitution allowing him to go days without eating more than a boiled egg and a piece of toast. I always needed three meals a day and became anxious if one was delayed. After I married, I became a bit stout because my activity was less.

It was not until I was in prison that I became thin. This was not because of the quantity of food. We were fed adequately because of the exertion of our punishment. It was the monotony of the gruel, the hard bread, the tasteless cheese that was difficult to bear. After several days of this fare, no prisoner looked forward to eating. Lying in my hard bed, I dreamed of savoury meat pies and thick stew and sweet cakes. I thought of all the times I’d eaten so much that I had to loosen my belt, all the times I ate because food was set before me, not because I was starving.

Now, I understand. After a week without nourishment, I realise that I have never, ever actually been hungry before. I am given limited amounts of water, but that does little to still my hunger. It keeps me alive, which (I suppose) is the point. I’m not allowed to die yet. I cannot think about what that might mean.

Starvation is terrible, a worse punishment than I would wish on anyone. It reduces a man to a beast, a creature competing with other beasts. When the pangs come on me, all I can do is lie on the ground, holding my belly. All I can think about is food. Even prison food would satisfy me now. Hunger is a survival mechanism, urging a creature to go out and search for food. It is nature’s way of eliminating those who cannot fight for sustenance. An awful way to die, chained and starving, like a beast struggling in a trap, unable to free itself.

I am losing track of time. I’ve been noting the days and nights since I woke up here, but I doze off at odd hours and now it is all muddled. The sliver of light from the window is sometimes there, sometimes not. It’s been over a week, I think. My mind wanders. I don’t know what day it is. Time seems not to matter anymore.

The feeling of hunger has faded as my body begins to atrophy. The human body is designed to be able to go for periods with reduced nutrition; it can adapt to much less food than one is accustomed to eating.

My body is beginning to consume itself. At first, I was angry at my confinement, worried about Holmes, fearful of my future; now I sleep more, feel lethargic when awake. I exist in a world between waking and sleep, and am sometimes unable to tell where I am. I wonder: if I were given a chance to escape, if I would fight? Would I run? Or would I not care enough to try?

A girl brings me water once a day. She is kind, but terrified. Soon after I came here, just as I truly started to suffer in this hole, she brought me some bread. I ate it quickly, every crumb, and thanked her. I asked her name. _Lizzie,_ she said. The following day, she wore bruises and her eyes darted around, avoiding mine. She brought me no more food.

I don’t think about food now. I have a lot of time to think.

When I was arrested, I expected some kind of legal process. Instead, I was brought into a room where men I’d never before seen pronounced me indigent and sentenced me to the workhouse. I was given no opportunity to speak, removed and put in a holding cell when I objected, shouting out that I was not a vagrant, not without means, and still a citizen entitled to legal representation. I was shipped off to the workhouse that very night, arriving in time to be de-loused and put to work. Not so different from prison, I thought. I have yet to figure out how this is meant to help a person without means to become a useful citizen.

I was allowed to talk with Joe Lestrade for a few minutes. I told him that I was fine, that I hadn’t been hurt. I worried though, knowing that many of our boys who’d been put in the system had not yet been freed, even with job offers and assurance that costs could be paid. He said he would appeal. I am not sure how that is possible when my arrest was not technically an arrest, and this prison not actually a prison. He was determined, but I feared he hadn’t enough influence to get me free. Still, I had endured two years of prison; I could live in the workhouse for a few weeks, maybe even months, I decided, as long as it took Joe to work my case through the system.

But now, no one knows where I am. Like a slave, I have been sold. I have no doubt that the paperwork on my “reassignment” will take weeks to process, and ultimately be lost. Even if I could contact someone, I do not know whose house this is. I was brought here drugged and blind-folded, woke to find myself in this narrow room with a high window. A cellar, from the smell and the chill. I am chained so that I cannot reach either window or doors.

I’m cold. The shivering adds to my misery, forcing my body to burn reserves. My skin feels like paper, and even after a drink of water, my mouth feels dry. When they open the door to bring me water, the light hurts my eyes.

Besides the girl, there is a woman who sometimes comes. Like the girl, she does not speak, but she seems to be assessing my condition. She empties the slop bucket (which does not contain much now) and gives me a clean blanket.

“Thank you.” My voice does not sound like my own.

She nods and leaves.

Moonlight is coming through the high window. A full moon, I surmise. I wrap myself in my blanket and curl up, imagining a sky full of stars rotating above me.

In daylight, Moran comes to see me.

“I was curious about you,” he tells me. “Moriarty underestimated you, I think. He used to call you Holmes’ pet. Clearly you’re more than a loyal dog. Still, you’ve been a disappointment. Did you really think that a few editorials could defeat me?”

He studies me intently; I say nothing.

“Yes, you’re a disappointment. I’m not sure what he saw in you. He was a worthy opponent. They both were, he and his brother.” He laughs. “But I killed them all the same.”

I keep my breathing even. _He thinks Holmes is dead._ Sherlock told me how he had made his way out of Milan, having traded identities with one of the monks at the monastery. And again, how he’d escaped from a burning mill, hoping he’d left yet another identity behind. Apparently, Moran has believed him dead all this time.

A small triumph. Inside, I rejoice.

“You’re going to kill me,” I say.

“Eventually.”

“Why wait?” Saying this, I find that I don’t care to wait. Sherlock is alive. I won’t ever see him again, but he is alive. I can die, if I have to.

“You will die when I am tired of you. Before that happens, there is something you must do. You _will_ do it, and I will not let you die until you do.”

I don’t ask. I watch, mildly curious as he undoes his flies. Leering, he shoves his member at me. “Submit to me,” he says.

I close my eyes, look away. “No.”

He grabs my face, forcing me to look at him. It’s a hard face, the ageing face of a man who once might have been good-looking in a coarse way. I can see the puffiness and broken blood vessels caused by alcohol, the lines around his mouth etched there by smoking. He’s a large man, a heavy man whose muscular frame has started to go to fat. He smiles unpleasantly. “A man who enjoys sucking other men’s pricks should find this easy.”

Several deductions could be drawn about a man who forces another man to suck his prick, but none of them would do me any good now. I say nothing, move back towards the wall.

“You will submit,” he says, tucking himself back into his trousers. “Maybe you’re just not hungry enough yet.”

When he leaves, my gut heaves, and I retch over and over, butnothing remains inside of me to come out.

Light and dark and light, another day. I don’t know what day. It doesn’t matter. I have been here forever.

I am not just thin; I’m bony. Sores have begun to form on my body, mostly at the points where the stone floor puts pressure on my joints. Like bedsores, they will eventually fester and become so painful that there will be no way to lie comfortably. The infection will kill me when that happens.

The woman returns, accompanied by the girl. Their task is to wash me. I am too weak to feel any humiliation when they pull my clothing off. I stand naked and trembling, leaning on the girl while the woman sponges me all over. She dries me with a clean towel and bandages my sores.

Another servant, a man, brings in a thin mattress stuffed with straw. It is lumpy, but clean. Dressed in clean trousers and shirt, I gratefully lie down.

I thank them. They do not meet my eyes, but the woman gives a little curtsey before she leaves.

All of this tells me that he intends to keep me alive. For what, I cannot guess.

Moran returns at intervals, making the same offer. By now my body has fully adjusted to starvation; my hunger is gone. I ignore him.

I sense that he is not like me, not a true invert. He prefers young girls, I think, and probably takes the pretty ones once or twice before selling them as prostitutes. Ironically, it was to protect women from the likes of him that the Labouchere Amendment was passed. But he does not lust after men. He is simply a man who uses whatever he can to make others submit to him. In my case, he has chosen what he thinks will break my spirit. He thinks he will force me to show my _perversion_ , as he terms it.

Today he is philosophical.

“I do not understand your fascination with the weak,” he tells me. “Nature does not intend the least fit to survive. Providing for those who will not provide for themselves is a violation of natural law.”

Being in no shape to be drawn into a philosophical discussion, I remain silent.

“Humans are hunters,” he continues. “Predators, if you will. Eat or be eaten. There is nothing morally wrong with taking advantage of the weak. Nature demands it. Moriarty knew this— you think him evil, but he was merely a scientist who recognised the futility of society’s pity for the poor.” He smiles, the voracious grin of a predator. “ _The poor you will always have with you._ The scripture says that.”

I know scripture better than most, having spent many Sundays sitting in the pew. My father made us memorise verses and recite them whenever he heard us say anything unkind or foolish. I remember a verse he often made us say.

“ _Open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land_.”

“There are far too many _needy._ ” He shrugs. “You and I are not so different. We both have served men of superior intelligence. The error Sherlock Holmes made was the very one he preached against: sentiment. He let it cloud his reasoning. Moriarty did not ruin him— you did. You should blame yourself for his death, since he died protecting you.”

I am trembling with the effort of not speaking. I know it is not true, and Holmes would never say it, but I do blame myself for what he suffered. “You may as well go,” I say in a shaking voice, “for I will never submit to you.”

He rises and looks down on me. “You killed Sherlock Holmes.”

When he is gone, I discover another symptom of my decline: I weep, but there are no tears.

Someone is here, in the dark. I rub my eyes and it grows light.

A corpulent, untidy man in a shapeless sack coat and rumpled trousers, holding a cigar between his fingers. He is sitting in a non-existent chair.

Hallucination, then. “Hello, Mycroft.”

“My dear Doctor,” he rumbles.

My mind is dying along with my body. I try to remember what stage of starvation this would be. Maybe three weeks, I decide. I don’t know. Here, I exist outside of time.

“You’re not real. I’m hallucinating,” I tell him.

“Hmph. You don’t say.” He taps his imaginary cigar and I see the ash fall off. “I’ve no doubt you’re correct, John. In death I am not, as it were, quite myself. Lacking my usual perspicacity, I suppose.”

“If you were yourself, I would thank you.”

He smiles. “What for?”

“You did so much for me— the trial and all. I’m terribly sorry that you died.”

He waves a hand dismissively, and in that gesture I see the family resemblance that is so rarely evident. “Everyone dies, eventually.”

“You’re here to remind me of that, because I’m dying.”

“I wouldn’t know.” He puffs his cigar thoughtfully.

“Why are you here, then?”

“Ask yourself. I am, after all, a figment of your imagination. I have no reality of my own. An hallucination is a story we tell ourselves. As I was dying, for example, I saw Sherlock walking across France, towards Paris. I knew that was just wishful thinking. I didn’t want him to be dead, you see.”

“That was real, though. He _was_ in fact walking across France then. He learned of your death when he arrived in Paris.”

“You would know. This is your hallucination.”

“So… I am seeing you because I needed to thank you. Or is there another reason?”

“What do you think, Doctor?”

“I think… when you were alive, you were the one person we could always count on. You could pull strings, set things in motion. You took care of your brother and, by extension, me.” I sigh and shake my head. “It was so hard after you died, for both of us. Sherlock truly misses you. We both do. He came back; I wish you could, too. This hallucination is my mind wishing you were here to help us.”

“Not many strings I could pull if I were alive now. Moriarty had a certain respect for me. I think he saw me as a challenge, a worthy opponent, perhaps. Moran, being much less intelligent, hated me. He was gradually cutting my legs out from under me, taking away my credibility and influence.”

“You could have stopped him.”

“No, probably not. But I was a convenient target, for a while. It took the focus off you. You do understand why he hates you as well, don’t you?”

“Not really. He said I was a disappointment. I suppose that means I am not intelligent enough to pose a challenge.”

“Not at all. It is about character. Colonel Moran is a man who hunts big game. Sherlock and I are tigers. Unlike a lion, a tiger is solitary. It does not hunt in packs. Nor does it assert dominance, though it is a formidable predator. These traits make a tiger the hardest prize to bag, the most challenging for a hunter like Moran. The easiest way to kill a tiger is by snaring it or poisoning it, hence the hunter’s strategies. I was poisoned, and Sherlock was snared in his trap at Reichenbach.”

“But Moran let him go,” I point out.

“For the sport. He didn’t consider it _his_ kill at Reichenbach. As a hunter, he would never take credit for another man’s kill.”

“So he hates me because I’m not a tiger? Not worthy of the great hunter’s skills?”

“You are not a tiger, true. You are a terrier.”

“A terrier?” I am certain I should be insulted, but instead I laugh. “What kind of terrier?”

“One of those small, rough-coated, sandy-coloured ones. A digger, a hunter. Feisty and tenacious.”

“All right, I’m a terrier. Why does it matter?”

“His problem is that he thought you were a rabbit, that he could simply scare you into running away. But you didn’t, and he doesn’t know how to hunt you. Every time he thinks he has you bagged, you run around behind and nip at his heels. He can’t get rid of you, and he can’t kill you.”

“He’s trying, though. I think I may be dying now.”

“Do you know how long a man can survive on water only?”

“No.”

“Neither do I, but you’re nowhere near that. And people are looking for you, Doctor Locke. Yes, they know your pen name and have read your words. You’ve become rather famous.”

“You don’t know that. You’re not real.”

“Correct. But _you_ do know it. You saw what you started and you knew that eventually the tide would begin to turn. Your disappearance has ignited the fuse.”

“That’s a mixed metaphor,” I point out. “Tides do not have fuses.”

He gives an ethereal snort. “Blame yourself. You’re having this conversation with a man who is dead.”

“I wish you weren’t.”

“Well, I am. But _you_ are not. Survive, John Watson. Outlive your enemies.”

I nod. “You’ve given me good advice on several occasions. I will try to do as you say.”

The tip of his cigar glows as he inhales. A cloud of smoke obscures him from my view. When it dissipates, he is gone.

Someone is shaking me. “Holmes?” I whisper.

“It’s Lizzie. I’ve brought water.”

I sit up and drink as slowly as I can, so that I won’t spew it up right away.

It’s the same girl who always comes. She’s about thirteen, I think, thin and pale, a few freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheekbones, dark hair pulled into plaits. I think of my Rosie, who is almost as old.

Lizzie’s bruises are faded, but her eyes are still frightened. Her lips move.

I stare into those eyes, shake my head slightly.

“Do not despair, sir,” she whispers so quietly I am not sure I’ve heard it. “They will come.”

“Who?”

She is silent. I drink again, then hand her the empty cup.

“They will come,” she breathes in my ear as she bends to take it from me.

Moran is angry. He says nothing, just begins burying his boot in my gut. I curl in on myself, protective, and keep quiet. There is not much more he can do to me, I think, and I am not going to give him any reasons to become more creative.

“Where is he?” he gasps when he has spent the first wave of his wrath.

And I understand. He has figured out that Holmes is alive. He feels like an idiot, as he should. He thought he’d bagged his tigers, but one of them got away. And now all he can do is kick this terrier.

“Where is he?”

He could be anywhere now. Knowing Holmes, his first action when he heard I’d been arrested would be to change rooms. He has taken a new alias and altered his appearance, and like a chameleon blending into the jungle, has evaded the great hunter. I want to laugh.

“Where— is— he?” With each word, he lands a fierce blow to my back. Fortunately he is too angry to target my kidneys, the organ most often damaged in illegal fights. But I am gasping with pain.

Two servants are standing at the door, watching, their expressions carefully blank. Moran turns to them.

“The well,” he says. “Put him in the well.”

The roar of the falls fills my ears, the spray wets my face. I’ve been here before, many times. It’s cold, but we’re in the mountains, where it is always cooler. I follow, a few paces behind you.

This time is different. I know where the path leads.

 _Finally,_ I think. I can rest when we reach Rosenlaui. A cozy inn, supper, and a warm bed. You curled against me, your breath on my neck. There we can rest, our troubles behind us. Just a bit further...

I take a few steps, then pause, dizzy, and brace myself against the wall. My hand touches the wet stones and I shiver. I’m so tired. I close my eyes, reach for your hand.

“Sherlock,” I say. “Wait.”

I feel your hand slip into mine. _I’m here, John._


End file.
